Queen’s Rebellion: A Human-Sized Convention on Arrow & The Flash

If I were to compare the Queen’s Rebellion convention to San Diego Comic Con, SDCC would be the Hulk and Queen’s Rebellion would be Ant-Man. Queen’s Rebellion was organized by Alpha Events, a company that specializes in small conventions across Germany for shows like Teen Wolf, The Vampire Diaries or Pretty Little Liars. In this case, Queen’s Rebellion focused on the shows Arrow and The Flash. The number of attendees must not have been over 150, which made for a very relaxed atmosphere. Ticket holders had the opportunity to purchase meet & greet, photo and autograph sessions with the actors throughout the convention. Everything was very well-organized and planned. The staff and volunteers were all extremely helpful and friendly at all times. I wish all conventions could go this smoothly, to be honest.

Apart from the paid activities, the convention only consisted of panel discussions between the fans and the actors Paul Blackthorne (Quentin Lance), Colton Haynes (Roy Harper), Rick Cosnett (Eddie Thawne) and Greg Finley (Tony Woodward/Girder). Which brings me to the only criticism I have: I find that panels work better with moderators but here, despite Queen’s Rebellion being a fandom-specific convention, Q&As led to the actors talking more about themselves rather than the shows. This is, however, a personal preference. Most of the attendees I talked to were very satisfied with this set-up. Indeed, it had the advantage that everyone in the audience had the chance to ask the actors questions. We learned about Haynes’ favorite animals (cats and frogs, if you were wondering), Blackthorne’s stage fright and how he prefers to act in front of a camera, and that Cosnett would love to record an audio book. All the actors were very open and seemed happy to answer any questions. Their jokes with the audience made everyone feel comfortable throughout both days.

On Saturday, fans had the possibility to attend a special evening activity. Alpha Events had organized a cosplay contest, a trivia contest and a raffle to win meet & greet slots, photo sessions or autographs from the actors. Sadly, only six people participated to the cosplay contest, but the enthusiasm they generated from the crowd made up for the low turnout. Before the big party on Saturday, Blackthorne, Finley and Cosnett showed up for a surprise panel where they answered random questions prepared by the organizers. As usual, Blackthorne was the life of the party – even before the party. His animated, lively way of recounting stories had all of us in laughter throughout the weekend.

Remarkably, the convention was pretty spoiler-free. Very few people asked questions regarding future episodes. For Arrow, both Blackthorne and Haynes remained very tight-lipped about the next couple of episodes. Blackthorne teased us but revealed nothing. Haynes preferred to not say anything at all as he is “very bad with spoilers and always say[s] more than [he is] supposed to”.

Despite their reluctance to tell us more about the season finale, Blackthorne and Haynes gave us some insight into their characters. Answering a fan who wanted to know why Lance is so “grumpy” about Sara’s death, Blackthorne explained that Lance is not in a good state of mind as he never had the chance to bury his own daughter. “He found out she was dead through Laurel very long after the fact and was robbed of the chance to say goodbye to his daughter.” On Lance’s deteriorating relationship with Oliver – now that he knows Queen is the Arrow – Blackthorne suggested that “they need a good chat” to fix their problems.

Many fans were broken-hearted by the departure of Roy Harper/Arsenal from Starling City in episode 3×19, so Haynes reassured us that he is “not leaving the show but personally, [he] want[s] to take a step back, enjoy life and [his] family, and relax a little bit”. Following a question about the amount of footage being cut from the original script of each episode, he revealed that a lot of Roy/Thea scenes were cut as well as a big part of the scene in episode 3×19 when Roy was saying goodbye to his friends. “It got cut down because it was so emotional, we could not really talk.” Finally, Haynes shared that he had a deep affection for Roy, who “is misunderstood. He has big walls and underlying emotions and he is hiding behind it.”

With the season finale being very soon, I tried to get a few exclusive revelations on The Flash. Be warned, minor spoilers ahead! Cosnett revealed a few tidbits for the next three episodes: “By the end of the season, things will unravel between Eddie, Barry and Iris. Things will completely change.” When asked to describe the season finale in three words, Cosnett said “absolutely ?#$% shocking!” Cosnett also teased us a bit about his character, Eddie Thawne: “He is so nice that everyone wants him to be a villain but everyone is scared of how bad he might become! There will be a huge twist for him at the end of Season 1!” I can only speculate what he meant but as we have seen in last Tuesday’s episode, it will most likely be related to Eddie sharing his last name with Eobard Thawne aka the Reverse-Flash. That being said, the best revelation of the convention, in my opinion, was that, according to Cosnett, there is always a rubber duck in the background of some scenes in every episode of The Flash! Be on the lookout next Tuesday!

Author: Froggy

Froggy holds a Master of Science degree in Marketing and Management from Dauphine University in Paris. She currently resides in North Haollywood aka Vancouver, Canada where she works as a Project Manager. In addition to covering conventions across North America for The Geekiary, she is a sports photographer for Our Game Magazine.